Infinitely Close
by Midorima Kazunari
Summary: A young Wallace Archangelo learns the principle of repulsion from his father and the principle of adhesion from his new bodyguard. (Written for the RLt Green Room Challenge #10 - The Big Bang Challenge.)


There is a boy who lives in a huge mansion, but he is not a family member or a servant. He is… other, and most of the time no one speaks of him, except in hushed whispers.

"Bastard," they say. "… an embarrassment to Arcangelo-sama."

He has all the food he needs, clothing, and a free education. He is safe from the riots erupting on the streets of Ergastulum, but unsafe in his own room.

His tutor – who does the job for the incredible amount of money the family throws at her – reads from the book every day, despite the fact that the boy can quote them from memory.

"Touch is an illusion," she reads. "No matter how close two objects come, they can never actually touch."

"So if I pick up this text book and throw it at your face, I can't get in trouble then, because it didn't really touch you?"

"The electrons that make up your hand, and all objects made of matter, are repelled by similarly-charged particles," she continues as if he hasn't spoken. "Touch, therefore, is the sensation of electrons repelling each other."

"So, when my father slaps me, his hand is not really touching me, but his electrons are repelling my face? Or better yet, my face is repelling his hand. That sounds about right. What accounts for the sting of pain?"

"Our brains interpret the physical world in a number of ways. The nerve cells send signals to the brain that tells us that we are physically touching something, when the sensation of touch is merely given to us by our electron's interaction with – its repulsion from – the electromagnetic field permeating space-time," she says and closes the book. "Tonight's homework is to discuss the concepts reviewed today in an essay, five paragraphs long. It is due on my desk first thing tomorrow morning." She collects her things and rushes out the door, leaving no room for any more questions.

The boy hates his name, and isn't sad that she never uses it. In his head he has a name he calls himself and once he's old enough to get out of this prison, he'll never use his birth name again. The only time he hears his name is when someone – usually his father – yells at him.

He sits in the empty room, taking advantage of the early afternoon sun coming in the windows and puts pen to paper. It doesn't matter what he writes, the tutor will put a perfect score at the top, so he decides to write about his family:

 _Now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense really that there is no such thing as touch. I should have understood it from the beginning; my father has always modelled that behavior; he avoids being in physical contact with me at all costs. Even if I wanted to be his son, I never had a chance. There's always been something holding us apart. Thanks, bitch, for giving me the scientific principle that defines my pain._

 _At first he welcomed me, or maybe 'accepted me' would be a better term. My father, the_ good man _who made a bad choice to cheat on his wife and get caught, made the responsible decision and took me off the streets rather than leaving me out in the cold. So gracious, so kind, what a wonderful man… blah, blah, blah. He, his wife, and his legitimate son brought me close, gave me the safety I'd never known with my mother, but the longer they knew me, the further away they became. That something holding us apart grew, like the barbed-wire fences around Ergastulum._

 _She was never in favor of me being part of the family. If she had had her way, I would have been sent away immediately – why couldn't she have gotten her wish? It would have been simpler if she had. I think it was from her that the initial derision started – do you like that word, tutor? I learned it from Edgar Allan Poe's_ The Tell-Tale Heart _, something I read without you – and then it overflowed into my 'half-brother.' I learned quickly not to call him just my brother as that would earn me a strike on the cheek, but from what I learned today, it was just father's electrons repelling mine, and therefore I probably shouldn't take offense. It didn't take long for that contempt to poison my father as well – or maybe he felt it all along and I was just deluding myself._

 _I can't remember the last time I felt a human touch that wasn't made in anger. Every slap, punch, or kick, sure, I can list those from the very first – ironically over spilled milk – to the latest – getting caught smoking behind the house during a break from your class. There are no memories of hugs, kisses, or even a clap on the shoulder and a "good job," and given that my memory is picture perfect that's saying a lot._

 _They assigned me a new body guard – a child no older than me – I know he will be just another 'electron' between me and my 'family.' It's no different since he arrived. He won't look at me and after hearing the servants' gossip in the hallway, it's no wonder. They should just mind their own damn business._

 _He won't talk to me either, but that's probably my father's fault. I can't have someone to confide in, someone to talk to of my own age. It's not like I need a friend, a confidant, someone to talk with, share with… No, I don't need anyone, especially some snot-nose kid with wonky eyes and a runny nose. I'm tougher than that, I have to be, or my father's fists will be teaching me the next lesson._

The door opens as he finishes the sixth paragraph. It's more than required by the class, but it feels good to get it out on paper, since no one – not even the tutor – will read it. The bodyguard peeks his head around the door frame, his hand tentative. He makes eye contact for a split second before looking at the toes of his dirty boots again.

"Just come in if you're going to already."

The boy looks around, his eyes wide and fearful, but when he is sure that the boy is alone, he steps into the room, and quickly closes the door behind him. He takes up a place in the corner, holding a sword that is longer than he is tall.

Without looking up from his work, the boy says, "I don't need you; I don't need anyone."

The child bodyguard continues to stand there, looking at nothing and everything while the boy thinks about what to say next in his confessional essay, but he can't stand the creepy quiet presence in the corner. He looks up and sees bruises that match his own, scrapes, and a black eye and wonders, just a little, if they have something in common. He continues to write:

 _Maybe he doesn't look at me because he is as afraid as I am… Maybe he doesn't talk to me because he's been threatened like I have. Is it possible, after all, that I am not as alone as I feel? But it doesn't matter because in this world there is no way to connect, since it is physically impossible to touch._

He finishes the paragraph and tosses the paper into the tutor's in-basket and then leaves the room.

The boy sits down again the next day and sees the one hundred percent on his paper and doesn't even bother to look for comments. There are none and there will never be. The boy's bruises have turned yellow-green over the last few days and soon they'll disappear as if they were never there to begin with. The bodyguard's wounds look better, as well, so the boy no longer feels the slight connection he had before.

"Adhesion is the tendency of dissimilar particles or surfaces to cling to one another. Cohesion refers to the tendency of similar or identical particles/surfaces to cling to one another."

"So, wait, doesn't that negate everything you said yesterday?"

She rolls her eyes and continues to read out of the book. "There are several types of adhesion: chemical, dispersive, and diffusive…"

After his lessons are over that day, he grabs a cigarette from his secret stash and grabs a book from the library. The bodyguard trails after him like a baby duck following its mother. The boy lights up and slumps down, against the wrought-iron fence. He flips open the book, but doesn't look at it. All he can think of is similar particles clinging to one another.

"So? What's your name?" he asks the kid with the sword, but gets no answer.

"…Hey. I said, what's your name?" he demands, irked by the continuing silence. "Are you ignoring me?" he grabs the kid by the upper arm, feeling his whole body twitch in response to the physical contact. _Great,_ he thinks _, just another repulsion of electrons._ The kid stairs at him with one wide eye and one bruised shut.

"Why won't you say anything? I'm your master, got it? When I ask you a question, you answer me! Did my dad tell you not to talk to me? Well, did he?" the boy trembles in anger, but the kid just shakes his head.

"Ey kANt HeeR," he stutters, and points to his ear.

"What?" He flings his book at the kid and runs inside.

* * *

The boy spends the rest of his afternoon in his room, hidden under the covers. He can hear the servants gossiping about him and his expectedly bad attitude, but he can't stop the thoughts coming into his brain. _He's deaf. He'd be totally useless in a fight. Why do Michael and Mom, I mean my step-mom, both get real guards…but I get…_

There's a knock at the door and a split second later, it opens. The boy picks up the first thing at hand, a small transistor radio he uses to catch news about the riots, and heaves it at the intruder. He doesn't want some servant spying on him in the name of fake pity, and he's determined to drive them away. The radio smacks the bodyguard in the nose, drawing blood.

As the boy watches that bead of dark red flow down the kid's face, he realizes that he has a choice. He can be just like his father and hit first and ask questions later – like he did just then – or he can be a better person.

"I didn't mean… I'm sorry –," he says as the kid approaches the bed, and hands back the book.

"Ey… kand… rede… you kana av id bak." The kid tries hard to be understood, but the boy has to replay the sounds in his head to translate it into real words: "I can't read. You can have it back."

"L-Look, I didn't mean to throw that at you," he says and for once there is no judgement in the eyes of the person he has to explain his horrible actions to; the boy simply watches his mouth for every word. It doesn't matter that he is kneeling on the bed and the other is standing just out of reach, because when he stops talking, the kid looks up at him, waiting patiently, and as their eyes meet, there is no repulsion between them. _Maybe this is true adhesion,_ he thinks.

"I… didn't get… to ask your name. My name's Wallace, Wallace Archangelo. What's yours?"

* * *

A/N: All the dialogue between Worrick and Nick comes directly out of volume three of the manga.


End file.
